My name is Billy. I play multi-instruments and melodica is one of them. This blog would give an introduction of what melodica really is, and how you can express the artistry through a melodica. Hope you guys would get a melodica and have fun after reading my blog :)
Well, I have been really busy with my ukulele performance and singing performance these weeks hence I did not update. Sorry about that :P
Anyway, recently I watched a video of them playing the song from Mario Kart. I was like, WTH!!!
They even try to mimic the car engine sound on the melodica before the song starts!! But yeah when the sound comes out from their instruments, you would be like "WOW, 4 melodicas could sound like a band playing!!"
So this time I won't talk much ,WATCH this video and you know what I talk about!!
P.S. This also remind me the old days when I played Mario Kart with my ex-girlfriend. I called myself a pretty good gamer already, but I did not even beat her once, NOT EVEN ONCE haha. It was fun time and great memories though :) Another thing is that I probably have to record a new song on melodica soon, haven't done it for a while.
Hi there. Today I would talk about a "sister instrument" of melodica -- Accordina.
I know many of you guys have heard of the instrument "Accordion", but I think you probably never heard of "Accordina" right? Well this instrument actually looks like one part of a button accordion, but you play it like a melodica (you blow air inside the instrument to make sound) instead of accordion (you pull the bellow to draw air to make sound).
Seriously, I thought of getting an Accordina before, as the sound of it is INCREDIBLE, and it is very "European noble sounding". But I end up did not get it. There are several reasons:
1. It is way too expensive. 2. As it is button accordion like, I have to learn the fingering all over again. 3. I cannot play the melody and rhythm together by using two hands on accordina.
But seriously, it is a VERY NICE sounding instrument, I may get it one day in future though :) Anyway, here I found a video somebody plays Bach on it. You will know why I call it an "European noble melodica". Enjoy!
First of all, Happy Valentine's Day!!
I have been really busy since recently due to some Chinese new year events. Hence I did not have time to update the blog and I am sorry about that :P
Anyway, this time I would leave the melodica playing to some mad good Japanese melodica player, and the song is "Clair de Lune" from the classical music composer Debussy.
This song is originally a famous piano solo piece, but as you can see, some crazy youtuber made the complete transcription for this piece. Personally I think this version captures the mood of the original piece really well, it is even up to the point that Debussy would probably composed this song on melodica instead of piano, if the melodica was invented back in his time. Again, you can really see what a melodica can actually do if one really knows how to master the instrument, which is what this blog's mission: to let people see how badass a melodica can be.
I have made an arrangement of this pieces for the beginning part too, maybe I should made a complete arrangement as well. I think this is also a perfect gift for Valentine's Day :) Enjoy!
Today we would talk about a premium melodica - Vibrandoneon.
First of all, Vibrandoneon was invented BEFORE melodica, it is only that both instruments have very similar mechanism. Vibrandoneon was invented in Italy in 19th century, where melodica was invented around 1950's in Germany, then the Japanese put the piano keyboard design on melodica. The main difference is that Vibrandoneon has double reed for each note on the instrument, and you can turn both reed on, or one of them on, just like an accordion; where the melodica has only single reed for each note. More importantly, Vibrandoneon is crafted by premium wood. Hence Vibrandoneon has richer, rounder sound than melodica.
But of course, Vibrandoneon is MUCH more expensive than melodica. It costs around US$3000 as I know. Actually for such high quality instrument, the price is not too bad, even I once thought about getting one. However, the reason I did not buy it is that it cannot be played by two hands, which would highly limit the style of playing. To me, I would make way better use of a good melodica like Mylodica or Hammond 44, than a Vibrandoneon, and they only costs US$300 and US$385 respectively. (In my case, since the pickup of my Hammond 44 somehow does not work, I asked the seller to give me US$130 discount, so I ended up paying US$255 for such wonderful instrument LOL).
Anyway, here is how Vibrandoneon looks and sounds. You can definitely tell it is a FXXKING good sounding instrument.
First of all, Happy new year, and hope everything is better in 2016!!
Today I would talk about one of the most memorable moment in Dragon Ball Z, which is the scene of Gohan VS Team Bojack.
When you think of Dragon Ball Z, most of the time you would think of Super Saiyan, Kamehameha, bad ass fighting scenes, etc. This particular scene of course there are still Super Saiyan and Kamehameha, but it is much more than that.
In this part of the story, it is after defeating Cell, so Goku sacrificed already. One day Team Bojack came to the Earth, and trying to conquer the world. Gohan and other Z warriors stood up the game, but Team Bojack was too strong that even Gohan was in the verge of defeat. At the last critical moment, Goku's spirit rescued Gohan, and told Gohan that "Stop being a pampered baby, it is now YOUR turn to protect the Earth." Then Gohan realized his mission, unlock his hidden power and defeat Team Bojack.
This scene is a very meaningful and touching scene: it talks about the end of the journey of the Father, the Father has already passed all his power to the Son; while the Son, received the Father's power, is time to use this power to continue the journey. The music from this scene captures this message very well, and I arranged a version for melodica solo. This song has very beautiful legato line, and it builds up gradually from the beginning to the end. Technically it is not too hard, but to capture the soul of this song is not easy. I hope I can do this song justice on my melodica playing :)
Hope you guys like the song and see you next week!!
First of all, I was sick hence I did not update the blog last week, sorry about that.
This time I would talk a bit about playing and arranging some classical pieces on melodica.
It is always a challenge to arrange classical pieces for melodica, since the melodica has not been invented when those classical composers wrote their pieces. Therefore, arranging classical pieces for melodica really takes a lot of musicianship, and understanding the "language" of the pieces from different composers is very important. If you arrange the pieces for melodica solo, you may even have to change the style of the original pieces, but not to the point that it would lose the original "melody line". So far I have arranged some parts of these classical pieces for melodica solo:
Bach:
1. Toccata in D Minor; 2. Minuet in G.
Beethoven:
1. Sonata Pathetique; 2. Fur Elise
Chopin:
1. Nocturne Opus 9 No. 1; 2. Nocturne Opus. 20 in C# Minor
Debussy:
Clair de Lune
Anyway, here I would post my demo of Chopin Nocturne Opus 9 No. 1 on melodica. I only arranged the first several bars, and I changed the key from Bb Minor to C Minor for easier playing. I would say my arrangement capture the color of this piece pretty well, even though I changed some part of it. And I definitely could arrange the whole piece if I really go for it :)
This time I would talk about something other than melodica. As you may remember, baritone ukulele is also one of the other instruments that I play. Last week I went to an ukulele meetup group, we played the song "White Christmas" over there. I jammed with the other guy where I played the melody chords and he played the rhythm chords on low G ukulele and standard ukulele respectively. People commented the performance as "oh I felt like I wanna cry". You can imagine how beautiful the song came out :)
Hence I arranged another version for baritone ukulele solo. The lower register part is actually the same as the one I played in the meetup group, only this time I added another verse and made some twist on the upper register. Normally you rarely hear the very high notes of the baritone ukuelel, but this arrangement makes use almost the whole range of it. The only thing I think it can be better is that I probably should use less strumming on the upper register part, as the song itself does not fit that lousy arrangement that well. But yeah you never really know how it sounds before you actually record the whole song. Anyway enjoy and Merry Christmas!!
FINALLY, I got Suzuki Hammond 44 melodica!!
This melodica is a very nice instrument. First of all, it has 44 keys instead of regular 37 keys melodica, which gives me more freedom of music arrangements. The sound of it is great, but very different from the Wood Mylodica, another great sounding melodica. The Hammond 44 sounds like some brass instrument, while the Wood Mylodica has a more mellow, gentle sound like woodwind.
As you may know, PSY, the original singer of the world famous song "Gangnam Style", has a new song released called "DADDY" about a week ago. This time I would use this song to test the Hammond 44. The result is very nice, and it's funny that this song sounds very much like horse racing tunes when it is played on this melodica. The whole arrangement to me sounds like it is played by a brass ensemble :)
This song is actually a very hard song for melodica. As you may notice, this song is very fast, a lot of continous notes, and almost no place to sneak in breath. In order to play fast continuous notes in melodica nicely, normally you DON'T keep repeating pressing the keys on the melody part like how you do on piano. If the continous notes are not too fast, you can use breath to blow several times to get the continous notes. If they are too fast, then you need to use your tongue to get the fast notes. I would say I am quite good with using breath, but I still need to work more on the tongue technique.
